Bigfoot alive and living in northern Minnesota? The co-founders of the Northern Minnesota Bigfoot Society say, “100 percent yes.”

They said they have received more than 75 reports of sightings, captured images, and Bigfoot footprints in just three years. They’re sharing their insight while sorting fact from fiction as they take KSAX on the hunt for Bigfoot.

“I’m a skeptic of Bigfoot because I’ve trapped this whole area and never, ever did we see any Bigfoot tracks or see Bigfoot anywhere,” William Tucker of Bena said.

Long time trapper William Tucker is anything but a believer, but just miles away from Bena, mind boggling footprints were found.

Each track was a bit different, different pressures, different depths, eliminating the possibility of some sort of footprint stamp.

This is just one of the things the co-founders of the Northern Minnesota Bigfoot Society say confirms the fact, Bigfoot is out there.

“I’m 110% convinced that it exists. There’s just too much evidence, too many people’s emotions showing when they recount their stories,” Bob Olson, a co-founder of the Northern Minnesota Bigfoot Society said. “One lady cries when she recounts her story of how this thing stood up and looked at her. She felt it looked into her soul.”

Since 2006, Olson and Don Sherman have received about 75 reports of similar Bigfoot sightings in Northern Minnesota, some of which have been captured on camera.

The most recent was captured in Remer. Though to some, the image may look like a man in a suit, a comparison with 6 foot 5 inch Bob Olson showed this man would have had to have been at least 7 feet tall.

Sherman and Olson say “wood knocking” is just one more way Bigfoot makes his presence known. Olson said Bigfoot responded to him at Carey Lake when he knocked on a tree five times.

What about bones? One KSAX reader says, “I believe Bigfoot is 100% real, as are a lot of the other creatures of Cryptozoology. But i believe in their true form, they are spiritual creatures, that manifest in flesh as they so desire. That is why we will never find bones, or other such evidence of them.”

On the other side of the coin, Olson says giant bones belonging to Humanoid creatures were found in the late 1800’s, stretching 10 to 12 feet.

While there haven’t been any Bigfoot skeletons found, many trappers say they’ve never come across any bear, wolf, or other large animal skeleton either.

Other signs Bigfoot exists include branches plucked straight out of trees, strange looking shelters, and stick men to warn other Bigfoot of humans in the area.

“When there’s stuff that doesn’t go away, there’s gotta be something to it and the evidence just keeps mounting up,” Olson said.

For some Bena residents, the legend of Bigfoot is far from a tall tale.

“I never seen it, but like I says I believe in it,” New Prague resident Leo Hinderscheid said.

“I don’t know what to say Megan but I believe in it and that’s the way it will be,” Helen Tibbetts of Bena said.

Last fall, after several people called police saying they saw something that looked like Bigfoot on the Northwest side of San Antonio, we were contacted by a group of men who call themselves Bigfoot investigators. They said they’re convinced that Sasquatch is here and probably always has been. So, our Delaine Mathieu said — prove it!

Last December, a homeless couple in San Antonio called 911 saying they saw something in the woods off Highway 151 and Culebra. “I would be a liar if I said I thought I knew what it was, but I don’t know. I know it picked up that deer and walked,” reported the caller. Police checked it out, but nothing was ever found.

Troy Hudson believes Bigfoot is here. He used to work for the Department of Homeland Security and now runs TBIG — The Bigfoot Investigation group in Dallas. “I’ve been in the woods a lot as a child and I’ve seen things I can’t explain to you,” Hudson told us.

We set up camp with him and his colleague, Chase Robinson at Garner State Park in Uvalde County near Leakey — where a man in a truck reportedly saw a Bigfoot on Highway 83 in 2006. “It was in December, early December around 10:30pm,” Hudson said. “He was messing with something and he happens to look up and notices movement.” He says the creature ran across the highway and disappeared.

“But that sounds crazy!” Delaine told Hudson. “That sounds almost ridiculous, right?” Hudson told her there are too many witnesses, too many reports across the country, too much documentation, too much data that suggests what are these people seeing?

Crazy is a word Troy and Chase say they hear a lot in their line of work, but there are several Bigfoot investigative groups in Texas like TBIG — determined to find Bigfoot. “If people in Vermont are reporting a tree knock and a whoop as well as someone in California, Florida, Utah, Oklahoma, Texas — it only leads you to believe that there’s something out there.”

And to the unbelievers out there who call these guys nuts? They say, just go on an expedition. “Try it. Before you condemn us, go out and try it,” Chase told us. “See what they see and listen to the sounds of the night.”

He stands 9 feet tall with stringy brown fur all over his body and glowing red eyes, and if he truly does exist, he probably lives in a forest near you.

The ape-like beast known as Sasquatch is mere legend to skeptics, but to members of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, he is a legitimate scientific conundrum. The group regularly scours areas in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and other wooded parts of the state in search of “squatches” — that’s right — plural Sasquatch.

Based on sightings reported by BFRO’s Web site, Washington state is effectively Bigfoot central, more specifically the densely covered Cascade foothills of Southwest Washington. The group believes Sasquatches live in complex communities with advanced social norms and complex forms of communication, including their own language.

“These people who live here, if you could get them to talk to you, they would tell you, ‘We hear them all the time,’” said Scott Taylor, a particularly active member of BFRO who led a group of eight people on a research trip near Mount Rainier National Park last Saturday. “We try to come out to places like this to meet the witnesses and sit and talk and let them get it off their chest, because many of them have been bottling it up for years.”

The group’s claim to fame is the “Skookum Cast,” a body impression of an ape-like figure found in the Skookum Meadow, in the southern portion of the Gifford Pinchot. It was unveiled in 2000 and studied by the late Washington State University anthropologist Grover Krantz, who dedicated much of his career to studying Bigfoot, along with the Kennewick Man — skeletal remains of a prehistoric man found on the Columbia River in 1996.

Taylor, a retired U.S. Marine and engineer by trade who lives in Spanaway, said Lewis County is one of his most common areas of investigation, and he experienced one of his five Sasquatch sightings while deer hunting south of Mossyrock in December. He said his attention peaked when he heard the characteristic Sasquatch “scream.”

“It’s high-pitched like a chimp, but with much more timbre, like a growl. You experience a primal sense of fear,” Taylor said. “I scanned the slope and saw a creature on all fours dart from one tree to another. And that’s common when they come into contact with people. They’ll get low to avoid being seen.”

Tyler Bounds, a Stanwood man also on the expedition, said he has spent time on old logging roads outside Morton, where he saw trees jammed into the ground with root structures facing upward. He said he heard a strange growl on the excursion.

“It sounded like a monster,” he said.

But in the world of Bigfoot, the believers are clearly outnumbered. A total lack of bones, plus purposeful attempts at Sasquatch hoaxing serve only to bolster the case for skeptics.

“It serves them no purpose to be seen by us. How often do we find bones of bears or cougars? They quickly decay,” Taylor said. “And it’s pretty easy to tell what’s real and what is a hoax.”

Another member of the expedition Saturday says he has never seen a Sasquatch. He said he’s a federally funded anthropologist, but declined to give his name.

“Once you start looking into the evidence and reading books and all .. the idea that it’s all hoaxing and misidentification, I don’t know, is it a collective hallucination?” he said. “It seems more reasonable to start looking at the idea that these things really exist.”

Bigfoot Hoaxer Ray Wallace Has Roots in Toledo

Perhaps the most famous Bigfoot hoaxer of all time hailed from Toledo.

Ray Wallace, apparently with the help of a Toledo friend, Rant Mullins, wanted to play a trick on Northern California miners in the 1950s when he was on a road-building project. Wallace made a wooden cast from an outline of a friend’s foot expanded by three times and left impressions in the ground near logging sites.

According to interviews with Wallace’s family, the hoax began as a way to deter people from vandalizing the sites but later developed into a lifelong hobby. The fake tracks helped coin the term “Bigfoot” in a headline of the Humboldt Times in Eureka, Calif.

Wallace died in 2002, but is survived by family still in the area. Bigfoot believers generally don’t buy the Wallace hoax because its announcement came after his death when family members found the foot pressings after sorting through his old junk. The Bigfoot faithful also take particular umbrage with what they say are fabricated quotes in a 2002 article by the New York Times calling Wallace’s passing “the death of Bigfoot.”

“He used to mess with us kids. Then he made those tracks at a camp down there in California — ‘course they got up the next morning real excited,” said Dale Wallace, Ray’s 76-year-old nephew who lives in Toledo. “Yep, he was a real character.”

The following are Bigfoot-related news snippets from The Chronicle’s archives:

April 12, 1982 — A retired Toledo logger said he helped create the legends of a Bigfoot creature around Mount St. Helens. Rant Mullens, 86, said he and his uncle were returning from a fishing trip in 1924 and decided to throw a scare into some miners in the area. They rolled rocks over the edge and hightailed away. Later the three miners from Kelso reported seeing huge, hairy, apelike creatures that hurled boulders down upon their cabin. The miners said they fought off the creatures with rifle fire.

Mullens said he built on the legend four years later, when he whittled giant feet out of green alder wood and a friend stomped around the banks of the Muddy River, leaving tracks for berry pickers to notice.

“I tell you, people will believe just about anything,” the solitary, retired logger said from his home in Toledo.

April 19, 1982 — H. Woodman, Napavine, wrote a letter to the editor saying he saw a Bigfoot creature in 1953.

“Going home one evening on the Rutledge Road in the Littlerock area, I drove around a corner and saw a single animal — I thought it was a bear standing on its hind legs in the road. It was taller than a 6-foot man and was brown in color. It ran across the road, leaped a split rail fence and was gone in four or five seconds.

“Sometime later, I read some literature and remembered this sighting. The animal had hind legs that were of human proportions. A bear’s hind legs are short compared to its body. When it ran away at great speed it did not run on four legs but ran erect as a man would. A bear would run on all fours… I know what I saw and the only proof I need is to remember that it was erect when it ran away.”

Feb. 10, 1997 — Ruth Steele, 73, was convinced that a Bigfoot creature was roaming the hills near her home in Dryad.

“No question about it, I seen it … I’m not hallucinating — I’ve got a good mind.”

She believed she had seen either a Sasquatch or some kind of alien three times in six months. She didn’t carry a camera with her those times, but she had begun to. All the sightings took place near rural Doty and Dryad on the semiforested River Road.

The 7-foot-something tall humanoid was covered with gray, white and sometimes black fur, she said. The animal’s face appeared pink skinned. The furry creature walked upright and wore no clothing. In the most recent sighting, in January, the creature heard her car, turned and looked directly at her. Its eyes shone red.

“It shocked the devil out of me when I seen it,” Steele said. “I thought what in God’s name is that? … He wasn’t no human. He’s never nothing I’d seen in the woods.”

During a recent sighting her daughter, Debra Steele, 41, also saw the creature. “It looked me right in the face — it scared the pants right off of me,” the younger Steele said.

Aug. 5, 2001 — The public had its first chance to see the Skookum Cast, a plaster casting of what might be Bigfoot. Wildlife biologist Dr. LeRoy Fish, Oregon, said the heel had what appeared to be a callus.

The 3½ by 5 foot chunk of plaster held the reverse imprint of what Fish and Kevin Lindley of Mossyrock said was an unknown primate.

The impression had been discovered in Skookum Meadow in Skamania County in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, between Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams.

Bigfoot skeptics say Wallace could have been behind famous tracks found at the Ape Cave near Mount St. Helens.

Reported Bigfoot Sightings in Lewis County

1967

Winlock — “The Brinson Monster” — Startled by a tall standing beast, high school kids who were out for a night of beer drinking at their regular spot return with a rifle and attempt to kill Bigfoot.

1969

White Pass — A Washington State University student sees a roadside Sasquatch who was startled by his headlights and then stepped over the guardrail on U.S. Highway 12.

1980

Packwood — Man reports a large scream from an animal running across the back side of the High Valley Country Club.

1990

Morton — Two men cutting cedar shake blocks near a creek hear a peculiar scream on an old logging road.

1994

Mineral — Two friends see a “dirty white” Sasquatch picking branches from a crab apple tree near a farm.

1996

Morton — Two people spot a Sasquatch bathing in a pond and periodically slapping the water with huge hands.

Morton — Mother and daughter see “large animal with long reddish brown hair” cross the road.

Morton — Woman stops her vehicle to look at what she thinks is a bear in a roadside ditch, but when it stood up, she thought it was a gorilla. She said the Sasquatch appeared to be injured and bleeding and had a “sad look” as it crossed the road in front of her car.

2001

White Pass — Family traveling from Tacoma report a Sasquatch standing in the road.

2002

Mossyrock — Riffe Lake fisherman and his son see a Sasquatch walking in a clear-cut forest near the shore.

Randle — A man and his wife are awakened by a loud scream similar to a peacock, but louder and with more timbre. The man went outside and mimicked the call and was answered six times.

Packwood — Elk hunter is spooked to find giant footprints in snow.

2003

Morton — Night watchmen for a logging company hear a strange short scream with a deep tone and two days later describe a figure “like Andre the Giant stepping over a rope.”

2004

Doty — A dozen teenagers camping at Rainbow Falls State Park hear a strange scream after putting out their camp fire.

Mossyrock — A wife and her husband hear two strange screams while out elk hunting and camping near a clear-cut forest.

2005

Salkum — A man driving down a dead-end country road sees a nondescript “gray patch” get up and move two steps into the woods.

2006

Doty — A man hunting in a wooded area comes into direct contact with a Sasquatch, which screamed at him and then “said something” he couldn’t understand.

2007

Winlock — A man lets his dogs run in his back yard when he hears a strange scream come from Olequa Creek.

2009

Salkum — Three men sitting in a drift boat on the south side of the Cowlitz River hear a sound like a “chimp screaming” from dense brush directly across the river. They said the sound carried on wailing for a minute or more.

Todd Standing is a columnist for Unexplained-Mysteries and a Bigfoot researcher. He’s made quite a lot of headlines in the Bigfoot community by coming forward with video “proof” of these bipedal, ape-like creatures that he has filmed in recent expeditions. It doesn’t just end there, he also claims to know a secret location called “Sylvanic” (According to Todd, this is the name given by the “native” people) said to be a hidden valley nestled deep into the American Rockies.

Todd and his team have released several teaser videos as proof and claim that they are keeping the location secret in order to protect the newly found creatures. Their website sylvanic.com has very limited information as to who the team is and what it is they actually found.

Their website itself holds no real information. There are a few links for an online store to buy the “video evidence” of the creatures they filmed. Not a surprise.
So what is the real story behind the “Sylvanic Bigfoot” ?

According to Todd’s Youtube account, there is a short video clip of the supposed evidence that was captured recently. The video was uploaded to Youtube on November 27, 2009. I don’t know the date of the video itself.

As far as most of the information from Slyvanic.com, the details of the location or more video proof cannot be divulged due to the team’s effort to help protect these creatures by there claims.

Tim Kedrowski and his sons, Peter and Casey, are not pushovers for Bigfoot stories, but a frame on a game trail camera set up on their hunting land north of Remer has left them in a quandary.

“To us, it’s very hard because we lean toward the skeptical type,” Kedrowski said in a telephone interview from his Rice, Minn., home.

But after checking with neighbors and any other hunters who might have been walking through the dense woods at 7:20 p.m. on the rainy night of Oct. 24, he said they couldn’t imagine what else the image could be. Tim said he considered ideas from a bear to a bow hunter in a fuzzy suit. But the arm and hand couldn’t be a bear’s, or its upright gait. And there is no evidence in the photo of a bow or flashlight a hunter might be using to track a wounded deer.

The Kedrowskis checked the Minnesota Bigfoot Web site and came up with the names of Don Sherman and Bob Olson, the Northern Minnesota Bigfoot Research Team.

Sherman is the facilities manager for the Cass Lake Indian Health Service Hospital, and Olson is an auto body repairman in Deer River.

Sherman has responded to numerous area Bigfoot sighting reports and has made casts of footprints. He said he once caught footage of a Bigfoot on a thermal imaging camera and heard its warbling call.

When Sherman saw the image the Kedrowskis sent him, Tim said the researcher responded that he believes it is a picture of a Bigfoot. Sherman went with the Kedrowskis to the photo site and measured the height of the creature in comparison the sapling next to it. He determined the animal is about 7 feet tall.

“I’ve hunted there for 43 years,” Tim said of their property near Shingle Mill Lake. “I’ve seen one bear off my deer stand. I’ve seen three timber wolves.”

Casey Kedrowski said he and his brother had gone out to the family’s hunting shack prior to deer season to bring in firewood and make other preparations. They set up a game trail camera to see what might be wandering around their property.

Casey said he and his brother were the only people who knew where the camera was located. They took the camera down when deer season started, and a couple of weeks later checked on what they had caught.

When they came to the picture of the long-armed creature walking upright, Casey said, “We just looked at each other. Each of us thought we were playing a trick on each other.”

When they determined that neither of them had pulled a prank on the other, they checked to see if anyone had been in the area that night. Tim said the only neighbors were two elderly hunters in their own shack, neither of whom matched the size and appearance of the creature caught on camera.

However, he said, when he asked the men about the night the camera clicked on the mystery, they said they had gone out about 2 a.m. to use the outhouse and had heard strange squealing noises. Ted said he asked them to show him the direction of the sounds. They pointed to the area where the camera had been, although they had no idea of its location.

Sharing photo

Ted said he just released the photo and permission for its publication last weekend.

“It was deer season and we wanted to concentrate on deer hunting, and (we) really wanted to talk to people in the area and … make sure they weren’t scamming us,” he said. “We’re not 100 percent sure, obviously. After visiting with (Sherman and Olson) we feel they’ve done a lot more investigation. That’s why we put it in their hands.”

Sherman said the Northern Minnesota Bigfoot Research Team started receiving reports of Bigfoot sightings in 2006 and has had reports every year since, including four reports this year. He said the first reported sighting he investigated was from a man running a road grader near Six Mile Lake south of Lake Winnibigoshish. Sherman said he was able to make casts of the footprints. A more recent sighting report was by a truck driver.

“I’ve talked to this guy – this was last year – he was coming from Crosby (Minn.) with a load of lumber by Washburn Lake,” Sherman said. “It had hands, he said, like baseball mitts. It took three steps to cross the road. He was pretty shook up.”

Doubt expressed

In spite of such seemingly credible reports, biologists remain unconvinced.

“Personally, I don’t buy the fact this thing exists,” said Blane Klemek, assistant wildlife manager with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in Bemidji.

“There are certainly species that are discovered each year –but megafauna – rare is it a big mammal is discovered,” he said.

He noted the belief that the ivory-billed woodpecker is not extinct after all is based on a fleeting, indistinct video image of some kind of woodpecker recorded in 2004 in the Big Woods of Arkansas. No other sightings have been reported.